Good morning. Welcome to the november 201 meeting of the federal communication commission. Madame secretary, announce the agenda for the morning. Thank you chairman. Good morning. For todays meeting you will hear eight items for consideration. First you will consider a report in order that would expressly authorize Voice Service providers to block certain types of row bow calls that falsely appear to be from telephone numbers that do not or cannot make out going calls. It would prohibit Voice Service providers from blocking 911 calls urpd the rules and encourage Voice Service providers to provide a mechanism to allow subscribers who le jet mat calls are in order to stop such blocking and clarify providers may exclude blocked calls under these rules from their call completion report. Second you will consider a report a second report in order and second further notice of proposed rule making order on reconsideration and memorandum opinion in order that would make available 1,700 megahertz of the additional High Frequency spectrum. Provide four gigahertz for satellite use. And Service Rules to promote robust deployment in the bands. And a second further notice of proposed rule making seeking comment on certain related earth station build out and licensing issues. Third you will consider a report in order to eliminate the rirpt for Historic Preservation review why utility poles are replaced with substantially identical poles that can support antenna or other wireless communication equipment and consolidate the commission Historic Preservation review rules and into a single rule. Fourth you will consider a report and order to declaratory ruling and further notice of proposed rule making order that will revise and seek comment on further changes to Commission Poll attachment rule. Net work change disclosure process and section 214 a discontinue process to remove barriers to Infrastructure Investment and promote broad band deployment and seek comment on taging targeted action to facility rebuilding and repairing broad band infrastructure after natural disaster. Fifth you will consider a fourth report and order order on reconsideration, memorandum opinion and order. Notice of proposed rule making and notice of inquiry to adopt and propose measures to effective and efficiently bridge the Digital Divide nor lifeline skub scribers and reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the Lifeline Program. Sixth you will consider an order on reconsideration and notice of proposed rule making that updates the commissions broadcast ownership and at trix rules to reflect the Current Media marketplace. That denies various other requests for reconsideration. Finds the commission will adopt and Incubator Program to promote owner ship diversity and seek comment on how to structure and administer such a program. Seventh you will consider a notice of proposed rule malk making that seeks comment on whether to eliminate 325. Annual rrt of tv systems or ways to modern use and streamline the form. Eighth you will consider a report and order and further notice of proposed rule making authorizing tv broadcasters to use the nebs Generation Television transmission standard. On a voluntary Market Driven basis. This is your agenda for today. The first item entitled advanced methods to target and eliminate unlawful robo calls will be rented by the consumer and bureau. Patrick weber will give the introduction. Im sorry, madame secretary. Can you repeat all that. I wasnt paying attention im just kidding. Thank you. Mr. Weber, when ever you are ready. Proceed. Good morning. Today im pleased to introduce an item that takes another important step in combatting illegal calls. By enabling Voice Service providers to block obviously spoofed calls before they reach consumer phones. The item before you allows voice sfts providers to block certain types of spoofed caller id calls that are likely to be fraudulent. Blocking these calls will help protect consumers from scams. And annoyance. The proposed rule have wide support from consumers and the industry. Before turning the presentation over to staff. I would like to thank bureaus and offices for the assistance. Office of general counsel. Wire line competition bureau. The Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau. The office of planning and policy analysis. And the office of communication business opportunity. With me this morning are chief of consumer policy division. John b adams. Deputy chief of the division. And karen sloeder. Attorney advic add the truth in caller id makes it unlawful to spoof kal you are id information. With the intent to defraud, cause harm. Or wrongfully obtain anything of value. So fraud ster who spoofs an irs phone number and demands money owed to the irs is breaking a law. A doctor using his personal phone to call patient can lawfully display his or her Office Phone Number as the caller id. The time before you focuses on calls that are likely to be illegal. Because they use one of four types of phone numbers for their caller id information. These phone numbers either are not used by consumer to originate calls or as a technical matter cannot be used to originate calls. Many of these numbers cannot be called back. Requests that the out bound calls reporting to be from the number be blocked. For example, the irs could request the voice providers block calls reporting to be from telephone numbers it doesnt use for out going calls. Next, the item authorizes Voice Service providers to block calls when the caller id information cant possibly be accurate. Providers will be able to block calls reporting to be from north american numbers that arent valid. For example, numbers with area codes that dont exist. Numbers that havent been allocated by the north american numbering Plan Administrator to a provoider. And numbers allocated to a provider but in the currently in use. While the record generally indicates that the blocking of calls reporting to be from the four categories of numbers presents a very low risk of error. The item as oo precaution specifically prohibits including 911 emergency calls in the blocking. It encourages Voice Service providers that choose to block calls to establish a simple way to identify and fix blocking error. The item before dwrou also seeks comment on two discreet issues related to the rules. First the item seeks comment on potential mechanism to ensure that a erroneously blocked calls can be unblocked as quickly as possible. Second the item seeks comment on ways to measure the effectiveness of the commission and industry robo calling effort. We recommend adoption of the item and request privilege to make technical and conforming edits. Thank you. Reproceed to comments from the bench. Just last week as part of the nations vert rans day observance. We paid tribute to those that protect and serve. We show our gratitude and in a great many ways. To the men and women who fought for and defend our country. Not just by saying thank you when we pass them by, but also by donating to veterans causes. So it is extremely disheartening to read reports about scammers who prey on our gratitude. That fraudulently call which pulls at our heart strings by asking for money to help u. S. Military members. One woman lost 2,400 because she believed that she was sending money to help a Service Member in need. Sadly her story is not an isolated one. Scams like this they happen too frequently. And we must do everything in power to stop them. According to to, 2. 5 billion robe calls were made in nationwide last month. Substantial number of them were unlawful. So today we establish rules to target these unlawful calls. By giving Voice Service providers the ability to block those calls. That are highly likely to be illegitimate. Will the adoption of today reporting and order put an end to unlawful calls for good . Sadly, no. But doing nothing ensures things will get worse. So the commission has a responsibility to assess whether it can make a difference and even if that difference makes only a dent. A small dent at first. It will give notice to scammers that we mean business. I ask me colleagues to include a series of questions as part of a further notice. That could enable this agency and consumers to better assess the effectiveness of our calling efforts. I did so because i believe consumers have the right to know what kind of job the voice provider is doing. We already have valuable data at our disposal. Through the fcc Consumer Complaint data center. And coupled with the reporting obligation on providers and commission issued report on the state of row bow calling. I believe that we will be better positioned to evaluate our efforts to date and evaluate and again conclude any alternative means for combatting this persistent problem. So i am grateful to the chairman for agreeing to add this language and thankful to the consumer and Government Affairs for the ongoing efforts to stop this unlawful practice. Thank you. We turn to commissioner o ryely. Thank you. The commission further seeks to stem the flow of illegal calls to provide to block calls from invalid or unused numbers as well as numbers on the do not origin gnat list. Typically calls from such numbers are from bad actors attempting to scam consumers. I afwree they should be blocked under appropriate circumstances. At the same time i have heard concerns that blocking is increaseingly capturing what i call false positive. That is certain calls from legitimate businesses offering legal products and services to willing and authorized consumers are also being blocked. Companies have reported it can be difficult and time consuming to dispute and remove inappropriate blocks. Im sure someone will say its just too bad calls are being blocked. Real people will be hurt. Inconvenienced or lose opportunities. Consider the cases of legal calls the Commission Already exempted from the rule. Such as pharmacy providing prescription notifications. Schools contacting parents or guard yap yans when children are missing or Energy Communities alerting a community. These dont include legal retail commerce that can benefit consumers. Unlike the do not call list where consumers take steps to avoid certain calls, the order assumes that all Consumers Want to be blocked and allow providers to proceed without consent. Lt role of the government is not protect citizens from themselves. I imagine this decision will need to be revisited at some point. The sanctioning of widespread blocking without approval and means to challenge false positives insults or vision of liberty and a recipe for future problems. Therefore i appreciate the chairmans willingness to work with me to add a notice seeking comment on a process for legitimate companies to resolve Call Blocking disputes. After all, as the order makes clear it is a violation of federal law to block legitimate calls. The record and experiences have shown to date it is already happening to have a clear process in place that would strike a better balance of providing certainty. And the avoiding the need for birzs to file complaints at the fcc. I will vote to approve. Thank you. As my colleagues may recall, in september. My cell phone rang in the middle of the open meeting. I try to play it off. But colleagues were kind enough to call me out. Which i appreciate. Not surprisingly when i look at the number after meeting it was a row bow call. The calls can be a mu sans and embarrassment. They can be malicious. Take for example irs scam calls. A caller will spoof an irs phone number. So their call appears in the victims caller id as coming from the irs. And attempt to defraud the victim. Today we take action to combat the types of illegal calls. Specifically as we have heard we allow providers to block calls in response to so called do not originate request. For instance entities like the irs that have phone numbers that are never used to make out bound calls can request a call reporting to be from the in your opinions be blocked nrd to prevent malicious spoofing. Totds order we adopt rules permitting providers to block calls from unassigned numbers. Notary public subscriber can originate a call from an unassigned number. These are highly likely to be fraudulent. Importantly we make clear the rules were adopting today do not authorize the blocking of 911 calls under any circumstances. Today action is not a silver bullet. Its a welcome part of the commissions new and much broader effort to address the problem of illegal row bow calls. Im glad this year in 2017 the commission elevated calls to the top enforcement priority. Combatting them will require action on many fronts. From rule making to enforcement action. To industry and stake holder engagement. I want to thank in particular today the staff of the consumer and Government Affairs bureau for the work on this item. It has my support. Thank you. All right. Picture this. A family sits down to dinner, two parents, two kids. Two jobs and two little time in the day. Its time around the table is special. Its sacred. Its a reprieve from the unrelenting chaos and hubbub of every day life. I know it well. This is true for my family and so many others. But night after night our family bliss is interrupted by rachel from card member services. By someone claiming to be from the irs. Or by some distant voice offering a cruise or vacation or subscription or Something Else i do not want. Didnt order. And do not need. I dont think my Family Experience is all that unusual. I think my experience is incredibly common. And in fact this agency has the numbers to prove it. Year in and year out. Row bow calls are the largest single category of Consumer Complaint at the fcc. By one count there were 2. 5 billion calls in the United States last month. That means more than 4,700 calls have been made since i started talking about a minute ago. Thats sane. Its a good thing this agency is taking action and making this vexing calls a priority. Thats why i support todays action and allow carriers to block calls from invalid, unallocated and unassigned numbers and permit carries to block calls when the subscriber to a particular number asks for the number to be blocked. In order to prevent spoofing. Maybe it will help prevent robo calls. I certainly hope so. Lets be honest. This is tepid stuff. And we need to bring the heat. My blood boils when those calls come in. Night after night. And when td strange voices and scams hold up many u line and invade my home. Thats why the fcc needs to do more. A lot more. Than just what we do here today. I think what we do here today has a real flaw. While the agency afrs carriers the ability to limit calls from what are likely to be fraudulent actors. We fail to prevent them from charging consumers for the service. So this is the kicker. The fcc takes abs to reduce calls but then makes sure you and i can pay for the privilege. If you ask me, thats ridiculous. Its an insult to consumers who are fed up with the nuisance calls. So on this aspect of today decision i descent. It remains the number one category of Consumer Complaint. To the federal communication commission. As chairman i have repeatedly made clear that the fcc top Consumer Protection priority is aggressively pursuing this skorge. This report is one more step towards fulfilling that commitment. With the todays actions we give consumers new tools to protect themselves such as do not originate list. And unassigned number block. Importantly we do so without piling more ineffective or inappropriate regulations upon industry. Instead were providing relief from rules that are having the proverse effect of facilitying unwanted calls. I thank colleagues for the comments on this item and joining me in the endeavor. Make no mistake this is not the end of the our efforts. Well need to do more and we will. Well building a Strong Foundation for figing illegal calls. Today and in the days to come. Im grateful to the staff for the efforts. The competition bureau. The Public Safety bureau. The Enforcement Bureau and the office of general counsel. The office of planning and policy analysis. And the office of communication business opportunity. With that well proceed to a vote on the. Aye. The item is adopted with editorial privileges provided. Can you take us to item number two. Mr. Chairman, the second item will be presented by the International Bureau. Wireless Telecommunication Bureau and office of engineering and technology. It is entitled use of spectrum ban above gigahertz. Chief of the wireless Telecommunication Bureau will give the introduction. Thank you. Madame secretary. The floor is yours. Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to introduce the spectrum frontier item. Which continues our effort to make High Frequency bans available for broad band and other use. This item would main ta the spectrum allocation and the flexible frame work the Commission Adopted in the 2016 report and order. And it would make available an additional 1. 7 gigahertz and wave spectrum for flexible wireless use. Under similar rules. It also would take steps to provide maintain access to mill meet waver sprek trum for satellite and unlicensed uses. After the u. S. Became the first